Power outage affects north county

Tuesday

Oct 2, 2012 at 11:39 AMOct 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM

Ami Ridling

Approximately 6,500 Pacific Power customers in the north county experienced power outages on Sunday, stated Tom Gaunt, Pacific Power spokesperson. The outage was the result of a broken insulator on the transmission line that runs along Highway 3 between Yreka and Fort Jones. The power outages began at 10:35 a.m. and affected customers in the southwestern part of Yreka as well as Etna, Fort Jones and Callahan. It took crews a long time to locate the broken insulator along Highway 3, which accounts for the lengthy outage, said Gaunt. Block by block, power was restored. At 6:19 p.m., 3,600 customers were still in the dark when the power was fully restored. During the outage, many businesses remained closed. Shop Smart was no exception. “Fortunately the outage was only for a short time,” said Shop Smart Manager Darrel Taylor. “We didn’t have any product loss but we lost business.” The Yreka Union School District (YUSD) struggled with crossing phone lines Monday morning as a result of the power outage, said YUSD Superintendent Dave Parsons.All calls to the district office were going to a Community Day School classroom, and the Jackson Street School phone lines were mixed as well.